red tail catfish feeding question

[swomley93]

Hey, I have a 4 inch red tail cat and I have been feeding blood worms and shrimp, about one frozen cube a day or 2 small pieces of shrimp, should I be feeding more? Or less ? Or what are some of your alls opinions, I'm aware of the size and requirements. Thanks!

 

[Woefulrelic]

If it's with tankmates I would experiment with feeding more shrimp each day until you find an amount he will not consume all of. This will promote making sure he is too full to eat the others and the others can finish the remaining shrimp. If solo I would test sporadically, with tests aimed before night time to promote movement during the day since he can't eat any friends. This will keep you from having to fish out shrimp and hopefully bulk him up a bit. I have not owned an rtc and can only make suggestions based on experience with other cats.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

I'd recommend a balanced diet with crustaceans accounting for no more than 1/4-1/3 of it and going by its tummy - when there is a good bulge, stop. Let it go flat, feed again to a good bulge. It may come to feeding every day but the bigger the fish gets, the longer the in-between-the-feedings time will become.

BTW, overfeeding sub-adult and adult RTCs is said to be the most common cause of their deaths, barring accidents. They WILL eat more and faster than they can digest, developing an intestinal clog, bloat, indigestion, food rot, then death.

You are a long way from there though. Just a heads up.

 

[swomley93]

If it's with tankmates I would experiment with feeding more shrimp each day until you find an amount he will not consume all of. This will promote making sure he is too full to eat the others and the others can finish the remaining shrimp. If solo I would test sporadically, with tests aimed before night time to promote movement during the day since he can't eat any friends. This will keep you from having to fish out shrimp and hopefully bulk him up a bit. I have not owned an rtc and can only make suggestions based on experience with other cats.

OK cook thank you it is living with a 6 inch Trinidad pleco and they get along quite well , for now and

 

[swomley93]

I'd recommend a balanced diet with crustaceans accounting for no more than 1/4-1/3 of it and going by its tummy - when there is a good bulge, stop. Let it go flat, feed again to a good bulge. It may come to feeding every day but the bigger the fish gets, the longer the in-between-the-feedings time will become.

BTW, overfeeding sub-adult and adult RTCs is said to be the most common cause of their deaths, barring accidents. They WILL eat more and faster than they can digest, developing an intestinal clog, bloat, indigestion, food rot, then death.

You are a long way from there though. Just a heads up.

OK so sound like they can eat a good bit throughout the day then.. and yeah his stomach was a little bulged that's why I was asking it didn't look like a pregnant buldge tho, I'll play it safe and feed a normal amount until I get. Comfortable medium cuz I don't want to overfeed it at all I lost one a couple weeks ago for some freak reason that was smaller than that so really trying to be perfect , what about a dead guppy? I have a tank full for my gar and they are all clean

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Not sure what you mean by "throughout the day" but what I was saying I'd feed once until a good bulge, all in one sitting, then not feed until the tummy goes flat.

I'd still freeze the guppies to kill any and all parasites (minimum: -20 Celsius, 60 hours). With that, nothing's wrong with guppies, except in a few months your RTC should be able to eat them by handful.

BTW, I've kept most species of gars and never offered them live foods. It is a choice, not a necessity.

 

[swomley93]

Not sure what you mean by "throughout the day" but what I was saying I'd feed once until a good bulge, all in one sitting, then not feed until the tummy goes flat.

I'd still freeze the guppies to kill any and all parasites (minimum: -20 Celsius, 60 hours). With that, nothing's wrong with guppies, except in a few months your RTC should be able to eat them by handful.

BTW, I've kept most species of gars and never offered them live foods. It is a choice, not a necessity.

Oh wow I didn't know that about the gars if you don't mind me asking, what do you feed them? I tried blood worms and he wasn't the least bit interested he's only about 3 to 4 inches big and always chills under some cover I have uptop

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

To every gar I got I only offered frozen-thawed aquatic cuisine, cut if needed, and pellets, preferably floating. They are greedy, voracious living fossil pikes and do learn to eat whatever's offered. They do prefer thawed, fleshy foods.

Given the small size of your gar and that it is accustomed to live foods, you may not be able to easily break it, that is essentially fast it long enough for it to cave but once it is ~6"+, I don't think it'd be a problem. Starting from good health, one would have 1-2 months to "convince" the gar to take dead foods but usually it would not take more than 1-2 weeks without any special tricks, such as garlic, rubbing new food in old food, using tongs with old food, then with new food, dangling food on a thread, etc.

There is a section on MFK on gars.

And welcome to our community!

 

[swomley93]

To every gar I got I only offered frozen-thawed aquatic cuisine, cut if needed, and pellets, preferably floating. They are greedy, voracious living fossil pikes and do learn to eat whatever's offered. They do prefer thawed, fleshy foods.

Given the small size of your gar and that it is accustomed to live foods, you may not be able to easily break it, that is essentially fast it long enough for it to cave but once it is ~6"+, I don't think it'd be a problem. Starting from good health, one would have 1-2 months to "convince" the gar to take dead foods but usually it would not take more than 1-2 weeks without any special tricks, such as garlic, rubbing new food in old food, using tongs with old food, then with new food, dangling food on a thread, etc.

There is a section on MFK on gars.

And welcome to our community!

Wow thank you I really appreciate all of that information and I definatly want to try to break him of that when the time comes, I guess the problem I'm having now is the fact that after reading on the forums I see that they eat a lot, and mines not eating as much as other peoples.. my tank was previously set up for about 4 months and had cichlids and sand in it , I siphoned all the old tank water out and kept the filter aND everything the same and put all new water in and let it run for a day and put the gar in, do you think he could be stressed from a mini cycle? What are your thoughts on that cuz he just chills at the top and seems to be breathing just a tad more heavy than the ones at the store

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

If you have done everything quickly and conditioned your water, I don't see how the "cycledness" of you tank would be affected.

What I didn't get is why you have done this and whether the gar was in the old water before you have done a merely ~100% water change.